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For Ayinla Omowura And Peter Tosh -By Festus Adedayo

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Festus Adedayo

Tomorrow is the 39th anniversary of the death of that highly talented Yoruba Apala music maestro and my musical idol, Eegunmongaji Ayinla Omowura, real name Waidi Yusuff Gbogbolowo. Although the anniversary of the passing of Peter MclnTosh, Jamaican rebellious Reggae musician, also my musical god in whose memory I make daily propitiations of constantly singing his song, is in September, I remembered Peter as the state of New York, a few weeks back, made a proclamation for this year’s renewal of the national observance of 4/20 in Tosh’s name.

New York had given this fitting epithet to Tosh: ““It is the privilege of this legislative body to honour Peter Tosh for his exemplary service and humanitarianism upon the illustrious occasion of the 4/20 Peter Tosh celebration. Peter Tosh’s example, as both an artiste and an activist, continues to inspire creators and idealists around the world. He was, and is, a true leader whose music and message inspire people on every continent throughout the world.”

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Festus Adedayo

Omowura and Tosh are united on many fronts. Both were musical prodigies, renowned for unconventional lifestyles of smoking marijuana, lived very violent lives and died in their 40s. While Omowura was assassinated at the age of 48 by his Manager, Bayewu in May, 1980, Tosh was assassinated at age 42 by Dennis Lobban, familiarly called Leppo, one of his boys who had allegedly taken a jail rap for him. Their songs are evergreen and didactic, pointing at the path to tread by generations after their demise.

The recognition by New York of the fight for human rights by Tosh is a fitting icing on the cake of his existence. Tosh was an iconoclast, poet and a man whose head carried a mansion-filled talent and ideas. Funnily, he was on several occasions jailed for smoking hemp (I man nah go a jail) and on an occasion after the Jamaican One Love Peace Concert of April 22, 1978, was so brutalized by police downpressor men for smoking Sensimilia that his skull was suspected to have been cracked. He was profound and a non-conformist.

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After writing Peter Tosh: 30 years after the iconoclast two years ago, Simon Kolawole, The Cable Publisher and I went into a long debate on who was greater between Tosh and Bob Marley. He stuck to the latter as the greatest and I told him I migrated from the latter to the former after I discovered Peter’s undiluted inspiration and poetry. I was Marley’s fan until about two decades ago. I told Kolawole that Chris Blackwell, who split the Wailers by promoting Bob ahead of the trio that included Bunny Livingston, did so due to Bob’s mulatto skin pigmentation and him being a commodity that would be commercially viable and promotable  to the West, as against either Peter or Bunny. Our argument is yet to hit a denouement.

Omowura on his part, though illiterate, held Abeokuta and his Mushin homes spellbound by his deep musical narrative. I am aware that Nigerian movie icon, Tunde Kelani, is trying to memorialize Omowura. I have heard some very un-academic and plebeian argument that Omowura doesn’t deserve celebration because he smoked weed and was violent. They should ask New York State Senator Kevin Parker who is at the vanguard of this memorialization of Tosh in faraway New York if he was blind to Tosh’s violent inclination. I hope and pray that all of us, Omowura’s fans, will gather this time next year to celebrate the 40th anniversary of a man whose songs still remain the compass to an uncharted world of today.

 The Bull’s 66th birthday

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Last Monday, one of Nigeria’s indigenous corporate icons, the Bull, Mike Adenuga, clocked 66 years on earth. He was born April 29, 1953. Apparently due to his quest for modesty and anonymity, there was no flinging of cymbals or beating of drums on the occasion. But the fact remains that an appreciative Nigeria must daily celebrate its icons, many of whom, without them today, the country would have continued to wallow in the corporate slavery designed for her.

Remembrancers will recollect Adenuga’s yeoman’s effort at killing the evil communication spirit of Per Minute Billing which was inflicted on hapless GSM customers at the outset of the communication revolution in early 2001. Nigerians faced excruciating conditions before his intervention and bullish crashing of the unfair monopoly in the industry. Adenuga was the man who won that war for the people of Nigeria, from the hands of monopolists. These are offspring of people whom our forefathers paid heavily for their liberation. Today, they are torching our children in their lands with unmistakable abandon. Lest we forget our true liberators.

Adenuga has since taken his Glo Network to an admirable level, investing huge foreign exchange on this venture, so as to ensure that communication in Nigeria and some other parts of Africa are not a pain in the navel.

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More fundamentally, Adenuga’s breaking into the corporate big league should be a course of study for aspiring Nigerian youths, even engrafted into their Civics. He did menial jobs, fought against lack, against all odds, before he arrived at this juncture. Curricula premised on the struggle and successes of icons like him, Dangote and a few renowned Lords of the Corporate World, would be a desirable compass to our aspiring youths.

Here is wishing the Bull a happy 66th birthday in arrears.

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